GOP should look in mirror

Monday

Jan 28, 2013 at 6:00 AMJan 28, 2013 at 6:10 AM

Clive McFarlane

The House passed legislation last week to increase the nation’s debt limit without the dollar-for-dollar spending cuts that Republicans previously had insisted on and had threatened to take the nation into default if they didn’t get.

Don’t harbor any thoughts, however, that congressional Republicans are embracing a more mature and reasonable leadership style.

On the contrary, they are acting as nutty as ever.

The real tragedy is that while Republicans sense that their party is in trouble, they are unwilling to accept that it is the party’s suicidal tendencies that are the problem.

Last week, for example, in an address to the Ripon Society, House Speaker John Boehner put the blame for the Republican demise squarely at the feet of President Barack Obama and his administration.

According to Mr. Boehner, Mr. Obama knows that he won’t be able to advance his second-term agenda as long as the House is controlled by Republicans.

“So we are expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party,” he said.

“And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”

Really?

If the Republican Party gets shoved into the dustbin of history it won’t be because of Mr. Obama and his administration.

It will be because of people like Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who expressed his skepticism that man can change the climate this way: “Well actually, the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there.

“The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

It will be because of people like former presidential candidate Rick Santorum on contraception. “This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so expensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

And it will be because of people like Rich Iott, former GOP House candidate and Tea Party member, explaining why he has often worn a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments: “I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things.”

Not all Republicans are blinded to the self-destructive nature of the party.

At the Republican National Committee winter meeting last week, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana told his party: “We must stop being the stupid party.

“I’m serious. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults.”

But listening to Rep. Paul Ryan speaking during an inaugural breakfast last week doesn’t give one much hope that the party is ready to take Mr. Jindal’s advice.

Mr. Ryan, who teamed with Mitt Romney in the Republican’s unsuccessful bid for the White House in November, said the Romney/Ryan ticket was not rejected on the basis of its principles.

“I don’t see this (losing the election) as a rejection of our principles,” he said.

“I think we need to do a better job of applying our principles to the problems of the day.”

How exactly does one go about doing a better job of applying the principle of writing off 47 percent of Americans, as Mr. Romney did during his presidential run?

I sure hope we never get to find out.

Principles like those deserve to be shoved into the dustbin of history.

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